Ouroboros II | The Wolf

7 | Future President Ira Rule Screws Up

Ira had survived battle once before. Last summer as Legion had come pouring into New York through a hole in the bottom of Lake Seneca: that had been terror. That had been panic. That had been Hell on Earth. There was no other phrase quite as fitting. But Ira had survived. Not by any merit of his own. Not by any wit, any skill, any determination. No, Ira had survived only due to those on the beach that night that kept careful watch over him.

How many times had he almost been killed? How many times had he needed saving? If they had looked elsewhere--if they had focused on someone other than Ira, would that person have been saved instead?

The Cardinal's Court was another battle. One Ira thought he could take on himself--or did he? If he truly believed in himself, why had he agreed to the Third Prince's plan B? Because he knew he couldn't do it. Deep down, he knew couldn't do anything at all. He wasn't the only one. Father Pine and the Cardinal knew he couldn't do it either, hence the formation of their own plan B. An Ascension? Forcing Ira into heights he didn't deserve? How much was Ira Rule worth?

Not this much, he thought.

Ira clutched his palms to his ears, squeezing down to block out the shouting, shoving, yelling, and screaming filling the court. Ira was drowning, sinking into a sticky pool of glue. Why had no one come to save him yet? And then, there it was. Hardly even a second after he'd had the thought. The hand settled against his shoulder, squeezing down to claim a fistfull of his black robes.

He didn't resist the force. He allowed himself to be sternly pulled from the podium. His feet, cement block heavy, stumbled obediently forward. His gaze traced the gray swirls in the white marble floors as they walked, twisting in and out of the riled crowd. The Bishop pulling him along didn't speak, and since Ira couldn't even bring himself to lift his head, to look into his blue eyes and admit that his efforts had been worthless, he appreciated the silence within the mob.

Father Pine escorted Ira around the left side of the Cardinal's bench to a small door traced into the wall behind the dias stage. Ira had never seen it before. He'd never made it past the podium. He'd never been inside the courtroom for anything but pleading. His gaze cowered. He couldn't even dream of looking at the Cardinal's bench, not at this distance. Not with the seats still fully occupied. He was slipping behind enemy lines--into the place he was least wanted and least accepted.

"Are you pleased with yourself?" A woman snarled. Ahaziah Rust, Ira recognized. His heart galloped behind his ribs, sending painful pangs up into his constricted throat--but she wasn't speaking to him.

"You tricked us, Absalom." Another agreed. Esther McCloud, the Fifth Cardinal and the only one who had ever shown Ira a shred of seemingly genuine concern. It hurt to hear her young voice twisted up into sorrow-heavy betrayal.

"I did not." The Cardinal disagreed, his voice as cold and still as hardened concrete. "We all voted for the Ascension. Ira Rule is a Bishop of my Sect, it remains my right to assign him his pilgrimaging task."

"You had no right to grant him the Vestige." Salamis Cedar snapped.

"I was to send him defenseless?" The Cardinal parried. "How cowardly it would be of me to taunt him with overthroning me but denying him the tools to do so."

"It didn't have to happen this way, Absalom." Adira Yarrow scolded. "There will be consequences."

"If Ira Rule succeeds in your plot, you will become an Archbishop. And no one will be able to save you from the council, Absalom Edom." Zephaniah Black snarled, his tone as sharp as the Third Princes' fangs.

"Then look forward to that day, old friends." The Cardinal said. The metal scaffolding beneath the stage's plain surface creaked as he dismounted his seat. Ira's ears twitched at the sound--latching onto it and replaying it in his mind.